


The Limits of Immutability

by iruutciv, Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Assassins & Hitmen, Constructed Reality, Euthanasia, M/M, everything is a simulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 03:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17378513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iruutciv/pseuds/iruutciv, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities/pseuds/Orchids_and_Fictional_Cities
Summary: “Hello. Are you going to be digging into my head?”“Ah. Um.” ‘Yes’, he wants to say, ‘sort of’, but also ‘no’. He’ll be assisting, but how long he gets to hold a scalpel depends on his mentor. “Mr. Nikiforov?”“That’s me.” His smile, heart-shaped and radiant, makes Yuuri’s breath catch in his throat. “Come in. I’m not contagious, or so they’ve told me anyway.”Yuuri steps into the room, unwittingly fulfilling a condition hardcoded into the Universe. After all, you have to meet someone before you can kill them.





	The Limits of Immutability

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was our collaboration for [_Soulbound_ , the YOI Soulmate Zine](https://yoisoulmatezine.tumblr.com/) ^_^. Thank you so much to the organizers, mods, and everyone who supported the zine!

 

 

> He finds her in the field of lilies behind the family manor, strolling under the moonlight alone. She’s humming a tune, high and pretty, four notes that climb to the heavens. After months of watching her, he still hasn’t identified the melody. 
> 
> But that’s not what he’s here for. And so it’s under the moonlight when Katsuo, a mercenary hired by one of her father’s enemies, kills his mark and earns a cool million pounds sterling for a few months’ worth of work. He should celebrate, but that’s the furthest thing from his mind when she falls, and he sees red painting these flowers that she loved so much. He must be going mad tonight, because against all reason, he decides at that moment to hold her as she dies.
> 
> Even at the brink of death, Lady Vittoria does not seem afraid, or even surprised. Her bright blue eyes shine with unshed tears - but not for herself, he realizes as she reaches up to touch his cheek. 
> 
> Her dying words to him are these: “Are you not tired, my love?”
> 
> Katsuo hears shouting in the distance, and gunfire; he barely makes it out of that mission alive. Her voice, along with the melody she was humming, echoes in the back of his head as he escapes.
> 
> Four years later, he hears it again - right before he shoots himself.

 

* * *

 

“No, no, no, no, no, no, _no!_ ” 

There have been better ways to start these meetings among The Powers That Be. Usually held at the turn of every century, these gatherings allow various entities to discuss developments in the Universes of which they’ve been granted stewardship. But this is an exceptional, secret meeting attended by three individuals who control a tiny slice of their Universe: something has gone very, very wrong.

“Oh stop it. You’re always so dramatic.” The Tester flips her hair over her shoulder, and takes a swig from a tumbler of beer that she likes to bring to these meetings. No matter how much she drinks, it never runs out. “Did they break any rules? No. I don’t understand what the fuss is all about.”

“Are we looking at the same Universe? Do you not see what the problem is?!”

The Designer, standing across from her on the other side of the table, waves his arms around to emphasize his point. The Powers That Be like to assume human forms when they meet like this - their charges, after all, were created in that image. The Designer’s chosen form is a tall, besuited man with long hair in a luxurious ponytail, and a jawline that is a work of art all by itself. 

“We are speaking about 766963746f7279 and 636f7572616765, are we not?” The final member of this group is the Developer, presenting as an older man with severe lines on his face, a permanent scowl, and an unfortunate hairline that he hides under a hat. “True, they have satisfied the constraint that we’ve defined for them. But a look at the logs for the most recent iterations has been… troubling.”

Hundreds of years ago, when this team was first given control to build out part of a corner of the Universe, some of the objects they developed were done so in pairs. The constraints varied with their whimsy; with building blocks of numbers, breath, and stardust, the possibilities were endless. They crafted pairs of Soulmates, Enemies, Twins. They assigned Hercules-and-Scorpio pairs, Mothers and Daughters, Childhood Sweethearts (But Alas: No More), the very Best Friends. 

They paired together 766963746f7279 and 636f7572616765 in a similar fashion. The objects had a certain degree of randomness to them upon creation, although some constants were defined ahead of time: 766963746f7279 always spawns with fair hair and skin, a smile shaped like a heart; 636f7572616765 is always a male of Japanese lineage, with an unfortunate predisposition to anxiety. Their final constraint is a shared one: no matter what else comes to pass, in every lifetime, the instance of 636f7572616765 is to kill the corresponding instance of 766963746f7279. 

“The latest instances of 766963746f7279 have been fighting their killers less and less.” The Designer produces logs, millions of lines’ worth, detailing these objects’ behavior in their most recent lifetimes. “What’s more, the latest instances of the 636f7572616765 object have been self-destructing!”

“Are we sure we can decouple that from the Anxiety attribute that he has, though?”

“No, this is something else. I suspect a corruption in these objects.”

“That all three of us missed? Impossible.” The Tester scoffs, but mulls over those words before eventually turning to the Developer. “What should we do?”

One of the good things about having a team of three is that the first vote will always come to a definite outcome. In the end, The Powers That Be decide to do nothing - or rather, to observe one more iteration, before deciding how to proceed. 

 

* * *

 

So it comes to pass: a new iteration, 7 billion new objects of the Human class. 

 

> Yuuri Katsuki, first-year neurosurgery resident at Wayne State University, daydreams about his mother’s _katsudon_ as he navigates the halls of Harper University Hospital on auto-pilot. Half of his mind is wandering when he goes to meet his new patient - technically, his mentor’s new patient: _28 years old, low-grade astrocytoma._ The numbers dance in his head: 5-year survival rates, mean survival times, probability of a full resection with a brain tumor like this. 
> 
> But when he walks into the room and meets Viktor Nikiforov, the numbers, the daydreams - even the air itself - all come to a stop. 
> 
> He’s sitting up in the bed, with his back propped up by pillows when Yuuri first spots him. A sketchbook is open on his lap as he puts the finishing touches on a sketch of the view outside his window. He’s humming a tune as he works, something soft and dreamy that Yuuri can’t identify.
> 
> He stops when he sees Yuuri. “Hello. Are you going to be digging into my head?”
> 
> “Ah. Um.” ‘Yes’, he wants to say, ‘sort of’, but also ‘no’. He’ll be assisting, but how long he gets to hold a scalpel depends on his mentor. “Mr. Nikiforov?”
> 
> “That’s me.” His smile, heart-shaped and radiant, makes Yuuri’s breath catch in his throat. “Come in. I’m not contagious, or so they’ve told me anyway.” 
> 
> Yuuri steps into the room, unwittingly fulfilling a condition hardcoded into the Universe. After all, you have to meet someone before you can kill them.

 

* * *

 

> Yuuri doesn’t believe in love at first sight. Or at least, he _didn’t_. 
> 
> It’s difficult to process, and impossible to put into words. Viktor is the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen, but as Yuuri learns more about him, he finds himself less enthralled in mere blue eyes and alabaster skin, and falling instead for his beautiful soul. Viktor is an artist with a ‘decent-ish’ online following, and he closes the gap by illustrating children’s books or doing commissioned portraits. Yuuri pores over his sketchbook, marvels at landscapes,  poodles, rivers, and _men_. He forgets about Viktor’s brain scans in his other hand.
> 
> His crazy, impossible dream, Yuuri learns, is to ‘encapsulate’ an emotion in a painting - not just a snapshot, he insists, but the very essence of it. “Like you take one look at it, and suddenly you’re filled with this - with love, with joy, with yearning.” 
> 
> “That’s impressive,” Yuuri breathes. “Do you have a plan?” 
> 
> Viktor shakes his head, but there’s a smile dancing on his lips. It grows when he taps his finger against his chin. “Not yet. But I’ll figure it out one day.”

 

* * *

 

> Time moves strangely in hospitals, and Viktor’s surgery gets pushed back. His tumor’s a rather slow-growing one, and a glut of urgent cases comes in, and there are only so many surgeons, so many hours in a day… 
> 
> Yuuri tries his best to keep his distance, and reminds himself time and again that love, or our perception of it, is a messy mix of chemicals and nerve impulses, and that he should know better. Knowing better doesn’t help - not when Viktor lights up when he enters the room, or purrs his name in a voice that switches off his knees. 
> 
> Two nights before Viktor’s surgery, the guilt eating at him finally wins. He approaches his mentor at the end of the day, swallows back the last of his denial, and requests to be taken off of Viktor Nikiforov’s case. _Why? Because it’s unethical; because I’m too close; because I’m afraid; because, because, because._
> 
> (What he doesn’t know is, because of that decision, the surgery goes off without a hitch. It does _not,_ as it would have in the expected reality, end in tragedy when a nervous 636f7572616765 nicks a blood vessel by a half-millimeter accident.)
> 
> “Did you get in trouble for it?”
> 
> “Not nearly as much as I could have,” Yuuri chuckles. He’s slurring, because he spent the night wired on vending machine coffee in the waiting room, and demolished half a bottle of tequila with Phichit when he learned that Viktor pulled through. The alcohol makes it easier to feel less ridiculous when he unrolls a sleeping bag onto the floor and declares, “Viktor, let’s sleep together tonight!”
> 
> Viktor bursts out laughing. “I’ve dreamed of you saying those words to me for a long time now, but this is not what I pictured in my mind.”
> 
> “Yeah?” Yuuri grins and leans forward. He pushes his glasses up onto his head, anchoring down his hair. “Hold on to that thought. There’s always next time.”
> 
> Their very first kiss goes like this, with Viktor loopy on painkillers and Yuuri equally loopy on tequila. But he finds it perfect nonetheless. 

 

* * *

 

> With Viktor’s clean bill of health, and Yuuri’s newly-cleared conscience, they start building a life together. They get a small house 20 minutes away from the hospital, where Viktor converts a bedroom into his studio, and paints a mural on one of the walls in the den. They teach each other how to cook ramen and borscht. They drink wine and dance in their socks in the living room. They kiss under the covers, and hold each other until dawn. 
> 
> One night, Yuuri catches Viktor humming a familiar melody, just as he’s starting to fall asleep. “Say, where is that from?”
> 
> Viktor stops. “I don’t know… I’ve always just heard it in my head. Is that weird?”
> 
> Yuuri shakes his head. He buries his face in the crook of Viktor’s neck. “It’s pretty.”
> 
> Viktor starts humming again, and Yuuri begins to drift off to the sound of his voice. He closes his eyes, breathes in the familiar scent of Viktor, happy to lose himself in his embrace. He'd like to spend the rest of his life in Viktor's arms.

 

* * *

 

>  He gets six years, instead.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

When this latest iteration ends in yet another instance of 636f7572616765 committing suicide, an audit is inevitable. 

It happens in the usual manner: a white, square room with no windows or doors. It’s easier this way, as objects that only ever remember having lived as real people - for whatever that concept of ‘reality’ is worth - behave more predictably when they’re lent that illusion again. 

That is how Yuuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov find themselves in this empty, sterile box of a room, summoned to stand before The Powers That Be.

There is a pattern in how these audits usually go, and it’s one that manifests clearly today. Denial is always the first response, after The Powers That Be explain who they are, and how the lives they ‘lived’ were not much more than electrical impulses, probability distributions, and algorithms that are hundreds of years old. There is laughter, incredulous; there is yelling. Viktor bangs his fists against the walls and calls for help, not knowing that sound, itself, is merely a construct here. 

“But… why?” Eventually, after an unknowable amount of time - yet another construct - has passed, Yuuri starts to ask questions that mean something. “Why would you ever - why would you write us this way? Why would you write _anyone_ this way?!”

“Because there are many ways to design a coupling.” The Tester, who has witnessed many a breakdown from 636f7572616765’s unfortunate Anxiety property, still finds no joy in seeing the beginning of another. She keeps her voice steady and low, hoping that it will calm Yuuri down. “A universe in which _all_ pairs of souls are bound by love would be… shallow.”

“It would be terrible design!” the Developer barks. “You had seven billion other people you could have fallen in love with, and who did you go out and choose?!”

“From what you’ve told us just now,” Viktor says, “it sounds like we didn’t choose much of anything.”

The Powers That Be have no clean, easy comeback to that. 

Nevertheless, the dispute continues. They plead their cases. They argue. They cry. Like this, it is tempting to think of them as more than just bits and objects and states. As they rail against the very entities that gave them life, in this simulated room where all parties have assumed a common, familiar form, it is treacherously easy to think of them as equals. 

“I’m tired.” The words that leave Yuuri’s lips are strangled, and a hundred murders are borne in the slump of his shoulders, and in the tears springing in the corners of his eyes. “I’m _so_ tired. I don’t want to have to kill him anymore.”

The Designer accepts this with the slightest of nods. “And you?” he asks Viktor. 

“Well, if it’s all the same to you,” Viktor says, managing a weak smile, “I would rather not have to die by his hand.”

It is the same request, at the end of the day. These two, bound from the start, simply want to be together - without the inevitable end condition as it has been written out.

The Developer is not swayed. “You are our creations. Stop making it so complicated and follow your design!” 

At the end of the day, with no resolution in sight, The Powers That Be give them a choice: either they undergo a series of tests in a Sandbox Universe, in which the same rules are kept and all of their random properties re-applied accordingly, or immediately have their code rewritten so that they are completely unbound from one another. Either option will be telling: if the Developer is right - if these two really are just the sum of a series of infinitesimal switches which happened to obey their constraints through needlessly complicated circumstances, bordering on loopholes - then they will eventually find an iteration in that sandbox where they _aren’t_ drawn to one another in some inexplicable, unwritten way. And if they choose instead to sever their connection forever, then none of this is a problem anymore. 

Yuuri and Viktor look at one another as they process this proposal from The Powers That Be. Their choices will be considered separately, but the Tester stresses that there is nothing stopping them from discussing it beforehand.

They don’t, though. They simply request a bit of time - minutes, hours, what does it matter? They hold each other as Yuuri cries, and Viktor wipes off his tears with the pad of his thumb. 

“It’s okay,” he says, over and over again. “Everything will be okay.”

 

* * *

 

> “Commemorative photo? Sure thing!” 

 

This is the result: a Sandbox Universe in which 766963746f7279 and 636f7572616765 have been decoupled, a messy but technically stable hybrid of the two options they had been offered. Because even with this simple, straightforward task - much to the Developer’s annoyance, and the others’ amusement - these two objects managed to cause them problems.

Because they chose _differently_ : Yuuri requested separation, unable to bear the thought of hurting Viktor anymore; Viktor, on the other hand, accepted the constraint and embraced it completely, choosing the sandbox repetition. 

_‘Death is a price I’d pay again and again, forever,’_ he told The Powers That Be, _‘if this is what it takes to bring Yuuri to me’._  

 

> “Viktorrrrr~! My family owns a hot springs resort! When the season’s over, you should come visit!” 
> 
> Yuuri half-slurs, half-hollers the invitation into his face. He’s clinging onto Viktor like a barnacle, and Viktor has been gracious enough to return the embrace, if only to keep Yuuri from falling. For whatever reason - possibly the champagne, but possibly something else too - being in Viktor’s arms feels like coming home. 
> 
> _‘Home’_ … huh. Now where did that sudden thought come from, Yuuri wonders, all of a sudden? 

 

The odds are astronomically low - practically _impossible,_ the Designer declares - for supposed ‘random’ properties to be set so that both Yuuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov wind up as world-class figure skaters in this iteration, thus being thrust into each other’s orbit from the very start. But that is exactly what happened. 

Sandbox Universes like this are isolated precisely so they can be monitored, and so the Powers That Be have embedded extensions of their own human avatars to be closer to the objects they’re studying. To Yuuri, the Tester has presented herself as Minako, and later, the Designer took over the mentor and coach role as Celestino when Yuuri left Japan. The Developer, in this form known as Yakov Feltsman, ‘found’ Viktor as a child, and has watched him like a hawk ever since.

 

> It’s in the middle of skating Viktor’s program, alone in that soundless rink at Ice Castle Hasetsu, that Yuuri recognizes the melody: four notes, ascending, a swell of emotion that sends a rush through his limbs and his veins as he skates across the ice. It’s haunting in how familiar it is, as though he’s already heard it somehow, lifetimes ago. 
> 
> It’s pure longing, distilled in a song.
> 
> _Stammi vicino… non te ne andare  
>  _ _Ho paura di perderti…_

 

They’re oblivious, completely, to how three of the people closest to them monitor how their story plays out. The Powers That Be watch, and they wait. They observe. 

When Viktor tackles Yuuri onto the ice in Beijing, they know where this is going. And when the story eventually ends, after decades of life and love, and the Universe does _not_ collapse into itself - despite the fact that Viktor dies of natural causes, instead of by Yuuri’s hand - they accept it. 

They run another iteration in the Sandbox Universe, with another Yuuri, another Viktor. And then another, and another after that. A thousand happy endings sprout from what is essentially the same love story - one that never, in fact, truly ends.

“Well, then.” the Tester declares. “There is really only one thing we can do.”

There are moments that a creator lives for, few and fleeting, when observing what’s become of their work. Sometimes, the very _things_ , objects, brought to life from the machinations of our minds bring us down and humble us. Somehow - completely through their own devices - these two objects, which had been designed to kill and be killed by one another, became wired to find and love and cherish each other instead. 

“So much trouble,” the Developer grouses, heaving a sigh. But that is the extent of his grumbling as he starts a new development branch - opening up the long-overdue process for The Powers That Be to rewrite them, finally, as proper Soulmates.


End file.
